Blurries - Some may find this helpful

[Cruachan 705]

Hi,I will start by stating that in common with the myriad tweaks and suggestions which have gone before, this is unlikely to be the proverbial magic bullet. Nevertheless, my observations may help some, so here goes.Mitch (Sesquashtoo), bless his cott'n pick'n soul, recently introduced us, in his usual engaging and inimitable way, to the Catalyst 7.10 drivers for the ATI Radeon GPUs, specifically the superb X1950 Pro. I have the (PCI-E)Sapphire ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 512MB variant and, on returning home recently from KABQ, I relented and decided to give them a shot.The 7.1s were uninstalled, and the system driver-cleaned in SAFE MODE in the usual fashion. The 7.10's were then duly installed along with the WDM Integrated driver and Ray Adam's Ati Tray Tools updated to the current version 1.3.6.1066 beta. So far so good.After some routine testing I convinced myself these drivers appeared stable. However, 2 issues appeared: On running 3DMark06 the confrontation sequence between the ship and sea serpent appeared intermittently bleached out. However, all the other scenes were okay. Secondly, I encountered a problem in FSX when switching to full screen in that my Samsung 22" 226BW LCD display colour would revert back to its default settings (I have it calibrated accurately using Spyder2express). This was easily resolved in the 7.1 drivers by checking "Disable low level color correction" in ATT. However, this was harder to implement in the 7.10s and was only successful following several attempts to make it stick - seems okay now.All that aside I thought it might be worth taking the opportunity to go back to basics before deciding again on the appropriate driver and sim (FSX)settings. I commend Koroush Ghazi's "The Gamer's Graphics & Display Settings Guide" to you all as essential reading: http://www.tweakguides.com/Graphics_1.htmlMoving quickly on to the nitty gritty, what follows are a few screen captures which help to illustrate what I have been doing. Hopefully they should be self explanatory:http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/179698.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/179699.jpg1.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/179701.jpg2.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/179702.jpg3.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/179703.jpg4.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/179704.jpgWhat is striking is that there is very little difference in the image quality when comparing 2,3 and 4. However, before image compression to fit here on the forum I did note that 3 was a little better than 2, subtle but detectable. Under the 7.1's I had my settings as in image 4. Now, under the 7.10s, I am trying the settings as in image 3 and the results seem to be good with little or no impact on frame rates. For the purposes of this exercise I locked temporarily at unlimited which seems fine in this situation. However, it's likely this will have to be changed back to my previous 20-25 to cope with more demanding circumstances. It should be noted that the sim was paused during this exercise so the frame rate values, while not far off, are not really a true indicator of what is actually seen when the sim is in motion.The only other changes of note in my FSX configuration file are:TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=30 (not set in stone - still experimenting)FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION=0.40 (probably irrelevant - dual core cpu)TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES_PER_CELL=2000TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_BUILDINGS_PER_CELL=3000Poolsize=5000000Ati Tray Tools (current settings):Texture Pref: High QualityMipMap Detail Level: High QualityWait for Vertical Sync: Always On (Still experimenting but the 'On' setting does eliminate ground texture creeping)Flip Queue Size: 2 (Still experimenting)Additional Options: (Support DXT Textures,Support Bump Mapping)Optimizations: Anisotropic and Trilinear FilteringCatalyst A.I.: LowForce Z-Buffer Depth: DisabledTriple Buffering: NoAgain, I encourage you to read Koroush's ATI Catalyst Tweak Guide which suggests a few additional tweaks to the drivers: http://www.tweakguides.com/ATICAT_1.htmlYes, so far I do like these drivers and encountered little or no blurring while flying around Friday Harbor. Textures were always quick to snap into focus which, I do agree, is a welcome improvement over the 7.1s :) Early days, I know, but encouraging nonetheless.Edit: Incidentally, while viewing the a/c from outside I find that locking the spot view helps to reduce any stuttering.MikeASRock 939Dual-SATA2, AMD Athlon 64X2 4800+ (2400MHz)(Toledo), 2GB Crucial PC3200 DDR400 Ram 3-3-3-8 (2T)(Dual Channel), (PCI-E)Sapphire ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 512MB (Catalyst 7.10 WHQL), Samsung SyncMaster 226BW 22" LCD Display Monitor (1680x1050x32), SB Audigy2 ZS Platinum (Drivers version 5.12.0001.1196 WHQL), WD Caviar SE16 250GB (WD2500KS) SATAII + Hitachi Deskstar T7K500 ATA133 UDMA-6 (320 GB), ASUS DRW-1608P2S Optical Drive, Antec P150 case with NeoHE 430W PSU, CH Products USB Yoke, Pedals and Fighterstick, Creative Gaming Headset HS-900, TrackIR Pro ver. 4.1 (build 29) with TrackClip Pro, Logitech MX1000 Laser Mouse, Windows XP Home Edition (SP2), DirectX 9.0c

[nudata 10]

Indeed it is possible to eliminate or at least mitigate the blurred textures (aka (blurry wurries). My ATI 9800 and e4400 cpu are today a low end system yet I have achieved 30fps (no autogen, flares or blooms)with a stock FS.CFG by simply fiddling with the ATI Catalyst control panel. I recently had to relaod XP & FSX from scratch so I decided to stay with the stock FS.CFG to see what would happen and was rewarded with blurred textures snapping into focus well in front of my flight path (120 knots). Before by totally polluting the FSX.CFG with the many "adjustments" I always ended up with blurred textures under the aircraft, snapping into focus at the last minute. I am getting now at 30fps (minimum real clouds, mesh complexity 49, mesh resolution at 10m, and no water settings). Not sure what the magic combination is but it is possible with reasonable compromise. I lock at 20fps or I see nasty stuttering as the texture buffers fall behind and catch up. Regards,Dick BoleyA PC, an LCD, speakers, CH yoke

[B7X7-900 10]

Have you experimented with the Multi Thread support in Tray Tools? I have mine set to 8 maximum and 4 minimum. I don't see any improvement in fps but it does seem a little smoother. (placebo effect?)

[Cruachan 705]

Hi B7X7-900,"Have you experimented with the Multi Thread support in Tray Tools? I have mine set to 8 maximum and 4 minimum. I don't see any improvement in fps but it does seem a little smoother."Yes, I've tried a few different settings but did not see any obvious performance effects, neither positive or negative. However, I have left it enabled with conservative max and min settings of 2 and 0 respectively.Other changes I have now made:Force Z-Buffer depth: Force 24bit (disabled by default)Triple Buffering: Enabled (VSync ON)AGP Texture Tiling and AGP Texture Micro Tiling unchecked (Having a PCI Express GPU I felt these were probably irrelevant)Z Mask Enable: unchecked (as per Koroush's advice)I do believe the sim now seems less stuttery during steep banks and remains, as before, very smooth with occasional hitches while flying straight ahead and gentle banking.Mike

[nigelgrant 4]

MikeI have followed all the settings at the bottom of your first message and they have made a significant improvement in blurries for me, but furthermore I find that setting my display in FSX at 1280x960 16 bit instead of 32 bit, effects a further improvement. I am using the latest Omega drivers based on the Catalyst 7.10 which I have been very impressed with.Thx for your infoNigelVancouverMy System:Intel Core2 Duo E6400Gigabyte GA 965G DS3 mobo Sapphire ATI Radeon X1950XT video card PCI-e 512MB with Omega v3.8.421 drivers2GB Transcend 800Mhz DDR2 RAMMaxtor 80GB 7200rpm hard driveMaxtor 200GB 7200rpm hard driveWestern Digital 250GB 7200rpm hard driveCreative Sound Blaster Live! with latest driversNEC FE950+ crt monitorCHProducts USB yoke and pedalsWindows XP Home edition with SP2DirectX 9.0©Silverstone Olympia 650W power supply with 54A on the 12v single railFive case fans

[Cruachan 705]

Hi Nigel,Glad to have helped :)Yes, I too am impressed by these new drivers (thanks Mitch!!). They do appear to be very stable and also, as a bonus, normal desktop operations seem much snappier. I've now tested with all my installed games/sims and applications and each, without exception, is benefitting visually.The Cat 7.1 driver set didn't allow me to get decent results by setting AA and AF in the sim and leaving the drivers as 'Application Controlled'. As you have seen with the 7.10s it is now a very different story. Perhaps this is also removing any potential conflicts between sim and drivers. However, it would be interesting to know from ACES what levels of anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing are being applied to the sim. It does seem comparable to my previous driver settings of AF:16x and AA:4x Regards,Mike